ow you ever can live
here."

"I've got used to it, you see."

"I never can get used to that sort of thing; but go on counting, and
counting, and counting. I'll tell you what I should like; and I'm
sure it would be the best thing, too."

"And what would you like?" said Bell.

"Just to get up at nine o'clock to-morrow, and go to church as though
nothing had happened. Then, when Dr Crofts came in the evening, you
would tell him I was down at the school."

"I wouldn't quite advise that," said Mrs Dale.

"It would give him such a delightful start. And when he found I
didn't die immediately, as of course I ought to do according to rule,
he would be so disgusted."

"It would be very ungrateful, to say the least of it," said Bell.

"No, it wouldn't, a bit. He needn't come, unless he likes it. And I
don't believe he comes to see me at all. It's all very well, mamma,
your looking in that way; but I'm sure it's true. And I'll tell you
what I'll do, I'll pretend to be bad again, otherwise the poor man
will be robbed of his only happiness."

"I suppose we must allow her to say what she likes till she gets
well," said Mrs Dale, laughing. It was now nearly dark, and Mrs Dale
did not see that Bell's hand had crept under the bed-clothes, and
taken hold of that of her sister. "It's true, mamma," continued Lily,
"and I defy her to deny it. I would forgive him for keeping me in bed
if he would only make her fall in love with him."

"She has made a bargain, mamma," said Bell, "that she is to say
whatever she likes till she gets well."

"I am to say whatever I like always; that was the bargain, and I mean
to stand to it."

On the following Sunday Lily did get up, but did not leave her
mother's bedroom. There she was, seated in that half-dignified and
half-luxurious state which belongs to the first getting up of an
invalid, when Dr Crofts called. There she had eaten her tiny bit
of roast mutton, and had called her mother a stingy old creature,
because she would not permit another morsel; and there she had drunk
her half glass of port wine, pretending that it was very bad, and
twice worse than the doctor's physic; and there, Sunday though it
was, she had fully enjoyed the last hour of daylight, reading that
exquisite new novel which had just completed itself, amidst the
jarring criticisms of the youth and age of the reading public.

"I am quite sure she was right in accepting him, Bell," she said,
putting down the book as the